Geekygirlification

Category Archives: #shortreads

One of the most interesting things to observe when one is walking aimlessly on streets and alleys is the expressions people offer. Take this photo for example. I took it about a month ago, it’s that small shop around the corner that sells candies, cigarettes, betel leaves and breath mints; they are very common in our city.
Now, I am no queen of emotional intelligence, but it appears to me that the shopkeeper IS smiling, but that is not a smile of amusement. He is smiling, but there is contempt in his smile.
What could bring such a smile on his face? Surely, it’s something the customer said.
It could be a remark on politics and corruption- they are two very popular topics in our country.
Or may be the customer just said something that he himself thought was funny, when, in fact, it was not. As most of the shops believe in “we can’t spell success without U” policy, the shopkeeper was just smiling to appear polite. What I thought was contempt was actually nothing but mere boredom.
This kind of shops usually have a very loyal customer base and the shopkeepers develop a close relationship with these customers. It may very well be that he buys half a dozen betel leaves everyday on his way home from his workplace for his old mother who lives with him. Maybe he doesn’t like the fact that his mother is dependent on these leaves, it takes a toll on her overall health, but he cannot make himself talk to his mother about it. His mother has led a very simple life, devoid of any kind of luxury. She has been a very devoted and loving mother, his son loves her as well and wants her to be happy. But as his job doesn’t pay much, this is as close as she gets to being luxurious.
We might never know for sure why the shopkeeper was smiling like that. But there can be so many interpretations and every single interpretation opens up a new door to a new story.
Why do you think he was smiling? Tell me on the comments! Have a great time interpreting expressions and making up stories!

What everybody, who is not somehow associated with Bipolar Affective Disorder, fails to understand is how a disease takes over every single part of one’s life and why one would use this disease as an “excuse” for all the tasks one couldn’t complete. Its hard for somebody who doesn’t have Anxiety to understand why one feels so out of place in one’s own classroom, why even familiar faces appear cold. You’ll know what helplessness is when you see all these affecting the one thing you wanted to be right in your life. Your grades start to fall and being a child of Asian parents, that’s the worst way of letting your parents down. Your parents, your hardworking honest loving down-to-earth parents, who never asked anything else from you. Your parents who, despite being unfamiliar with the term bipolar at first, accepted everything, even your average grades, with a smile.
So you become desperate, you understand that you NEED to up your act. You understand this, yet you can do nothing about it. You miss classes, you can’t study and you inform yourself that you are a fool for even considering good grades in your life again. You try to encourage yourself by saying you’ll do better the next time. But you don’t believe that for a second yourself. You blame yourself, you doubt the existence of your illness, you start suspecting that maybe you are just a lazy, inactive person. And your indolence is affecting your loved ones. You think of escaping, once and for all. But you are told by your parents that they would rather have you with your average grades than no you at all. You wish they wouldn’t say that, you wish they would rather see you dead. So you continue to breathe and try to ignore what feels like a personal purgatory.

I looked at my husband.
He was crying like a baby, the sides of his face in my hands, his four days old stubble grazing my palms.
At that moment, the line between romantic affection and motherly love wasn’t there anymore and my heart went out to him like he was my own kid.
I felt like I was dying of cancer, not by suicide, and that he was my four year old son.
It was as if he had been looking at the doctors coming at our house for days and although he hadn’t quite figured out what really was wrong yet, he knew in his heart that his mother was going away, somewhere very far.
All I could think of was how he would get very lonely soon.

The furious storm had turned into a mere drizzle when the rickshaw stopped beside the road. It appeared Zeus was done for the day.
The rickshaw puller was all drenched in his “lungi” and shirt. He mumbled a bad word, probably aiming his own anger at Zeus or some similar figure. Or maybe it was meant for the last passenger, who couldn’t be persuaded to give a few bucks extra for the rain.
He took out his little packet of weed and its paraphernalia and started to make a stick from scratch. Then he cozied up on his rickshaw seat, gave it a puff and uttered, probably at Zeus or at the raindrops or the last customer, “damn you!!!” and closed his eyes in ecstasy.

Took this photo (like all the others on my site) using the 5mp camera on my Microsoft Lumia 535 phone. Its not just the gears, decent photos can be taken by using phone cameras as well- that is the point I try to make.After all, its mostly about composition, light and colors 🙂

As the twilight came closer, the shadows became more and more lengthy, making them resemble works by Giacometti. The cat didn’t appear to be informed of that fact, nor did he seem to be in a hurry, he had his dinner planned. He had been observing his meal for a week then, that one was special. although it also lived in the alley, it had fat in its body. The cat could use some animal fat for himself.
He slowly entered the room through the house. A child was sleeping peacefully there.